Four hours later – long after Stella watched as the victim staggered away from the now bloody scene – two police officers finally arrive in the mostly Native neighbourhood in Winnipeg's north end; and while the young Métis cop seems eager to take Stella's statement, his older white partner dismisses the whole event as gang on gang violence and beneath official concern. Presented in a broadsheet newspaper format, Amen Break looks outward from a decisive year to contemplate what comes next.

We also learn about the casual racism he encounters within his relationship with his white fiancée and how he covers over the way it makes him feel. As the police try to piece together what has happened to these two friends, a picture of a community emerges in which most men are either absent, feckless or violent, and damaged women either survive or go under. It’s a book that explores social issues without ever preaching, or even seeming to be about them at all. Her NFB short documentary, this river, won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. I found it very difficult to keep track of all the characters and just when I thought I was getting to know a character the narrative would shift and I would have to try and connect again.This is not a happy story by any means but it is so beautifully written and I became so attached to the characters. While The Break is only the second of the five Canada Reads novels I’ve read so far, I would be shocked if this didn’t take the crown at the end of the competition.

It explores their love for one another and bond through life’s daily struggles, stresses and horrors. The novel’s perspective shifts from character to character, effectively unfolding the events leading up to the attack and its investigation while creating a multi-layered portrait of the tight-knit community to which Emily belongs. So begins the story and an investigation into the crime, resulting in a peeling back of the secrets in this family where rape has been accepted as a part of life in each of the generations, where the men are usually bad and stray from their women, and where the few good men are repelled by their women who have gone frigid by the damage done to them.

There's no doubt the nature of the story made for a very difficult read, but it's possible for goodness and beauty to grow from pain and misery. Generational Rape is the villain, for the perpetrators are faceless and nameless, and usually men, until in the predictable denouement, we see this villain cross genders.